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“Our potential lies not only in our diversity, but in the power of our community to act as one in service of our mission. Together, our stories of an Internet with people at its heart offer a unifying message for all the world."

Kathy Brown Remarks at the “Beyond NETmundial” Panel

As a participant on the “Beyond NETmundial” panel on Thursday, which included Chengetai Masango, Christoph Steck, Fadi Chehade, Hamadoun Toure, and Milton Mueller, I made the following statement:

The question posed this afternoon is how can we use the discussions we’ve had here in Brazil to move forward with what we were called upon to do: ensure deployment of an open, resilient, trusted, secure Internet everywhere. We will succeed in extending the Internet to all the people across the globe if we bring the power of true collaboration — guided by the principles embraced by this assembly of committed stakeholders. It takes work and time but the benefits are real and sustainable when we build, invent, create, and evolve this technical and human network of networks in a way that is inclusive, participatory, and ever mindful of the cultural and human rights of users.

We were witness here on Wednesday to the signing of the Marco Civil user protection legislation; but we know that the signing was the end result of years of thoughtful discussion and input from multiple stakeholders here in Brazil — patience and careful processes are necessary to get good results.

We have multiple forums ahead where we need to stay focused on our shared goal: an open and secure Internet for all.

In the next few months, we will engage in discussions on WSIS, we look forward to the IGF in Istanbul, we have a number of opportunities to discuss the transition of the IANA functions, and, as Dr. Toure outlined, the ITU plans to discuss its role in facilitating the underlying infrastructure at the October Plenipot. These meetings give us many opportunities to practice and perfect multistakeholder cooperation to get things done. By 2015, when we return to Brazil for the Brazil IGF, we should be highly-accomplished multistakeholder consensus builders!

Many of the issues included in the “way forward” section of the draft document will be included in the discussions at these future meetings. But we need not wait for government sponsored meetings to collaborate. Indeed, the work goes on in every community to build, maintain, and, yes, set norms for ourselves in how we use the Internet for the benefit of users. In August in Senegal, AfPIF will be focused on building IXPs across Africa, and there’s the upcoming Latin American Network Operators Group where infrastructure issues will be front and center.

The energy of the participants here in Brazil has been inspiring and energizing. At the Internet Society, we look forward to collaborating with you, working with you, standing by you, and continuing to advocate for a strong, secure, open Internet for all users.

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